NEW YORK: The first Guantanamo detainee to face a civilian trial was duped into doing dirty work for Al-Qaeda operatives who attacked two US embassies in Africa in 1998, his attorney said Tuesday in closing arguments. “Call him a fall guy. Call him a pawn. Call him ‘set up like a bowling pin,' in the immortal words of Jerry Garcia,” lawyer Peter Quijano told a jury in federal court in Manhattan. “But don't call him guilty.” Prosecutors allege Ahmed Ghailani bought a truck and explosive components used in deadly blasts in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans. But Quijano argued that government had failed to prove his “naive” client was in on the terror plot. “Ahmed did not know the object of the conspiracy,” he said. Quijano, in a three-hour argument, urged jurors not to be swayed by fear or hatred of Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. Prosecutors had repeatedly cited the terror group and its leader while presenting their case. “Al-Qaeda cannot be used to inflame your passion and desire for retribution and revenge at the expense of Ahmed Ghailani ... because to do so would be allowing Al-Qaeda to win,” the attorney said. At trial, witnesses described how the 36-year-old Ghailani bought gas tanks used in the truck bomb with cash supplied by the terror group, how the FBI found a blasting cap stashed in his room at a cell hideout in his native Tanzania ..., telling them he was going to Yemen to start a new life.
